


Future Perfect

by athena_crikey



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Episode tie-in, F/M, Fluff, Not crying not crying not crying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 04:01:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5693860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s Morse he’s been dreading telling. Morse looks at people and sees what they should be, what his unbreakable standards say they must be. </p><p>Spoilers for ARCADIA.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Future Perfect

**Author's Note:**

> This is more like winter in Saskatchewan, but hey, you write what you know.

For some reason, it’s Morse he’s been dreading telling.

The rest of the men will rally around, most likely with much shoulder-punching and free rounds at the pub. He probably won’t have to pay for drinks for a fortnight, not that he has the time to spend drinking them. Not with the steamer leaving in a week and his life to pack away neat and tidy, half to come with him and half to be forgotten in the dust. 

He has no concerns about Bright either; the man has too many sergeants under his command to mind losing one of them to the wilds of America. Probably won’t even notice, once a new face comes to fill his slot.

And Thursday. Well, there’s not much to be said there. The inspector never made a secret of his favourite, and for a while Peter took it only as another sign that the world is built on favours and personal privilege. It was only much later he came to see that sometimes – for a few rare people at least – rank and position and influence don’t mean anything. Sometimes, it’s only skill and heart that matter. It’s not a lesson he intends to forget. 

But Morse is different. Morse looks at people and sees what they _should_ be, what his unbreakable standards say they must be. And he brings down a world of scorn on those who don’t live up. 

Peter should not be a ranch hand. He’s a city boy, doesn’t know one end of a horse from the other, can hardly chase a cow off the road. What he _should_ be is a policeman; it’s something he’s good at, even if he’s not in Morse’s class of carelessly brilliant. He solves murders, he prevents crime, he helps people. He can do a hell of a lot more in Oxford than he ever could in Wyoming.

So he puts off telling Morse. Pushes it back each time he sees the DC, the words on the tip of his tongue only to be swallowed again and again. Until finally the party has been planned and Thursday’s volunteered to give a speech – God help him – and he still hasn’t told Morse. 

He doesn’t know how to do it, so he just breaks out with it right in the cleaning aisle of Richardson’s. 

“I’ve been meaning to say. I’ve put my papers in.”

The shock on Morse’s face is, in a strange way, gratifying. A tiny measure of payback for the years of being shocked by his subordinate. “You kept that quiet,” he manages.

Peter licks his lips, thinking of Hope, of the deep lines of worry on her face as she told him – and then the way they smoothed instantly into an immense smile when he kissed her. “This girl I’ve been seeing. She’s… well, pregnant. It’s the right thing,” he says immediately, almost defensively. 

And Morse just… agrees. Smiles, as though Peter were announcing his promotion to DS, and shakes hands. 

In the moment, it’s a shocking victory. But later, he starts to wonder if perhaps Morse is just glad to be rid of him. Glad, finally, to have a clear and undisputed claim to the title of Thursday’s bagman. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------

In the frenzy of the kidnapping, Peter mostly forgets about his niggling doubts. But they return to the fore when at the small gathering for his send-off, Morse is nowhere to be seen.

He spots him at last, lingering outside like some Victorian miss waiting to be asked to dance. And then, just as Peter is rolling his eyes, he turns and starts to make off. 

Peter runs outside to catch him, hears Morse’s lame excuse of Work, and accepts his handshake with a bitter taste in the back of his throat. He had thought after the last year that there was something more to their friendship, something that couldn’t be severed with nothing but a smile and a handshake. But there it is, in the plain. Somehow, once again, he hasn’t lived up to standards. He silently watches as Morse wishes him luck, turns, and walks off down the cobbled road. 

Standing outside with the soft spring breeze bringing the scent of elderflower and sun on old stone, he realises with a kind of twist in his gut that there will be none of the in Wyoming. No ancient cobbles and towering trees and sandstone. No Morse.

For the first time, he knows that he will miss it.

\-------------------------------------------------------------

It’s not until he’s on the bus that Peter understands he was wrong about Morse, and feels the bittersweetness of that knowledge. 

He opens the letter Hope hands him to see a few short lines written in Morse’s scrawl: _Dear Peter, For the baby. Morse._ He opens the enclosure to find twenty-five pounds of savings bonds – nearly a month’s pay for Morse. 

But he’s already gone, passing over Hythe Bridge and past the train station. Out of the only town he’s ever really known. And whatever he would have said to Morse, he never will now. As Morse intended it.

His only anchor in this new world is Hope. Hope, who has been on two continents and to school in two universities. Hope, who can ride and fish and shoot. Hope, who is bringing him into a new life, a new understanding, that he would never have expected for himself.

And if she reminds him a little of Morse, well, that’s understandable. How many truly brilliant, good-hearted people has Peter ever known?

\----------------------------------------------------------

The first few months are hard. Not the hardest months in his life – for better or worse, he has the comfort of knowing that those days are past and will never return. But he gets up sore and he goes to bed sore, and that’s when he sleeps at all between keeping Hope company when she can’t sleep and seeing to the animals and just lying in bed listening to all the unfamiliar noises of a prairie night. 

Hope tells him he’s lucky he’s come in the spring – that winter will be something he’s never imagined, and it’s good he see his new home at its best. Honestly, he doesn’t know what to think about that. All there is here is emptiness: endless miles of vast nothingness, just flat fields. Hardly even trees, not to mention houses. 

He learns to ride; can’t imagine the faces of the lads back home if they saw him walking his horse through herds of cattle, dressed in jean and hard-wearing cotton and leather. He puts on nearly twenty pounds, all of it muscle, and learns he’s never really known what physical work was.

As the months stretch by, he thinks less and less of Oxford, of England. As winter starts in before autumn has really finished, he starts truly settling into his routine. Actually beginning to understand what is happening around him – what to look for when he checks the animals each morning, how to control a herd, how to ride for hours without getting saddle-sore. Even here he doesn’t have real skill, but he’s a hard worker and the job gets done.

\--------------------------------------------------------------

Grace Jakes is born in December with the morning sun low on the horizon. It’s a beautiful, cuttingly clear day, and Hope’s father says there will be sun dogs soon. While the nurses help Hope and Grace get cleaned and settled, Peter goes out for a walk. 

It’s colder than he has ever known; -20 by the thermometer outside the hospital. None of his old clothes are of use here – a ranch hand doesn’t need flash suits – but even if they were they would be far too thin. They bought him new winter clothes in September, and he soon learned why. With the weather this cold frostbite can strike in minutes and men die yards from their homes lost in whiteouts. 

But today the sun is out and the world is beautiful. The air is sparkling, tiny snow crystals reflecting the sunlight like a million prisms. The sun is near the horizon, and on either side of it another smaller matching orb of light burns bright – the sun dogs. 

Peter thinks, standing with his hands buried in his pockets and his fur hood up, that he’s only once seen anything more beautiful. She’s upstairs in the hospital, waiting for him. 

He may have been only an acceptable policeman, may only be an earnest ranch hand. But he promises himself he will be the best father Grace could ever have.

He thinks, staring out at the horizon, that perhaps that was what Morse saw in him after all.

END


End file.
